Running Water
by NushiKasai
Summary: He'd found her once by a lake of ice. Now, a dead man walking from Reanimation, Tobirama found her again in the middle of the war, and his questions became more relevant than ever. Sequel to Frozen Water.


**Hello everyone! I suggest you read the prequel, Frozen Water if you haven't already done so! **

**I wasn't planning to make a sequel to that, but someone requested it as a prompt on my Tumblr, so I thought I might as well post it here :) **

**Please enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. **

* * *

Her fist collided with the ground, and the rising cloud of debris and rock showcased the tremendous power that she had unleashed with her. She landed close by, and stood like an absolute goddess overseeing the destruction she had caused.

"What a monster!" The First Hokage called out, his voice in cheerful awe. He turned to his companion beside him, who stood watching the scene with observant eyes. "That might be even worse than my granddaughter!"  
Hashirama laughed outloud, as most of the gathered crowd of rousing shinobi watched the girl in awe, but for Tobirama, who stood beside him, there was a different thought running in his mind.

_"Let's call a truce."_

Most of the cloud began to fade, and with a level of clarity, the silver-haired man saw the vibrant pink hair being whipped around in the wind following her onslaught of strength. This particular strength rang a bell inside him, though; piqued a particular section of his memories during his living time.

"_If I see you again, I will get answers."_

The girl he'd met.

The memories came rushing back: his experimented jutsu that had nearly frozen her underneath the water and her superb strength that had made little work of the solid water. The satchel she'd feared him seeing, and her obvious lie as to her origins.

This was **her.**

Nearly a century after his time.

_"And I will get mine."_

* * *

The night had fallen, and a truce of sorts had seemed to come over them all.

Madara and his forces had retreated, leaving the rest of them to stagger back to the Headquarters and wait for the morrow, where the violence would start all over again. That was the way of war, he had found. There was a mutual respect on both sides for the need to mourn and bury the dead, and recover mentally for the day approaching.

A break.

But Tobirama was interested in the break for other reasons. Specifically, it gave him the opportunity to search out the girl he had spotted during the day; the girl that he had remembered from his time of living.

He knew that there was more to her when he had met her, and now was the time to uncover exactly _what_. Logically, his search was taking him to the medic camp, for he had remembered her skilled ability in healing wounds.

It was a bit of a strange sight to see such a collected gathering of shinobi, but it was beginning to dawn on him that this was the future. His prejudice held no place here, and when the technique reanimating his body was released, his ideals based upon a lifetime of war and suffering would pass with him.

The same would go for Madara.

"Just patch up the arm and I'll take care of the rest, Sakura," a woman emerged from a tent nearest to him, and the name made him freeze.

_Sakura_.

That was what she had said her name was when they had met those years ago. It couldn't be coincidence.

He abruptly turned in place and wandered over to the tent, where the unknown woman gasped upon seeing him. He could understand that- it wasn't everyday that a shinobi saw the Reanimated body of one of their legendary leaders.

"Hokage-sama!" The small, brown-haired woman greeted him with a bow, and then hurried out of his path with a respectful diverting of her eyes. It seemed a reputation of sorts preceded him, though as to its detailed colors... he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

He cast her a quick glance, and then moved his interest onto the tent that she had departed moments earlier. Inside there, he knew that his answers would be. Bowing his head, he entered its interior and was greeted with the image of the pink-haired girl from his memory, though there were differences he noticed immediately.

She looked up, and upon seeing him, a tell-tale blush rose to her cheeks.

Her eyes were framed by the blags that accompanying lack of sleep during stress, and he needed no chances to guess what was causing such stress on her. Her hair was longer then he remembered, but the frayed edges of each strands showed him that she was simply less concerned about her appearance in the face of the war that overtaking her people. That was something that he, as a natural man of war, had never really worried about, but he could respect her for it as a woman.

It was the maturity in her that was shining through the most, though. She had been mature in their initial meeting, he supposed, but he knew more than anyone that war made the oldest of people grow.

"Hokage-sama," the girl, Sakura, stammered a greeting, an innocent greeting, and immediately turned away from him, almost as though she was trying to hide from him. Now that he had recognised her, that was an impossible feat.

She kept her eyes trained on the ground floor as she approached him and made to get past him outside. Frowning, he sidestepped and intercepted her movements so that she was face to face with him.

"You," Tobirama furrowed his brow as he stared down at her, and again mused at how easily read she was. It had been her open display of emotion that had made him assume she was not from Konoha when they first met. "You were the girl from the lake."

The pink-haired woman's face flashed with fear for a moment, and that gave her away despite how she quickly wiped it clean.

"I'm sorry," Sakura replied smoothly, holding the edges of the long white coat she wore in nervousness as she tried to move to his other side to leave the tent. "You must have the wrong person."

She was about to exit, when a firm hand gripped her wrist and none-too-gently pulled her back inside.

"Don't play games with me," the silver-haired man sharply told her- an inch of warning in his tone. "You'll find that I am in no amiable mood after this day."

She wrenched her hand out of his grip as a scowl flitted across her face; a brief show of the fire that he had seen on the days years ago.

"_Neither_ am I," she retorted with irritation in her tone. He refused to relent however, and continued to trade stubborn glares with each for another moment; both too proud to immediately give way. But finally, she tore her eyes away from his and sighed gently. "Yes, it was me. I was at the lake that day."

That was obvious, he had already concluded that on his own. But he had promised her that he would get his answers.

"How?"

She turned her head away again; a scowl on her lips and she adamantly crossed her arm in a psychological plea for defense.

"I don't have to tell you anything," Sakura replied with a fierce tone. "And you can't make me."

She knew she sounded childish, but she had her instructions and she'd not divulge the information freely.

He blinked in surprise, not used to such outright defiance from one woman. Then again, this woman could crush a boulder with ease, and that was certainly an empowering feeling. Whilst she had been in _his _domain before, now he was in hers and she was not going to be ruled in her own environment, it seemed.

Whilst he could respect that, it didn't lesson his irritation.

"I'm the Second Hokage," he reminded her with a firm tone in his voice that said he would not accept anything less than acceptance.

But for some reason, the girl found amusement from his words, and couldn't help but give a small chuckle to herself.

"I take orders from the Fifth, Tsunade," Sakura replied smartly, thinking of her _shishou_ and how she had told her student of her pride. It was that thought that gave her the strength to smile to the imposing man before her now. "Not you."

Tsunade? He thought, and then remembered that she was the latest Hokage. The girl he remembered was a small, slightly-sheltered but well-intended child that had more of a penchant for destroying things than healing them.

It seemed like _that _had changed.

"I'm her great-uncle."

The pink-haired girl's eyes widened at this, and then frowned in suspicion. She'd heard people say that Tsunade was the granddaughter of the First Hokage, and if this man…was his brother…

"She doesn't talk about her family much," Sakura blurted out, thoughts of the life of her mysterious _shishou_ too curious to pass up. Plus, it gave her an excuse to stall and try and figure a way out of the situation she was in.

_She'd sworn._

"We're all dead," Tobirama bluntly replied- not a trace of sadness in his tone. She'd begun to realise that was his personality; it was better to be truthful without qualms because it cannot be changed easily. "I assume that's why. Now, answers."

Answers.

The information had been highly classified, Sakura remembered, and even if this man was her teacher's great-uncle, she would rather keep to herself and not risk her wrath.

"No," she answered simply, before stepping back and approaching the table where she had been working. "You attacked me that day."

He resisted the anger rising with him; after everything that he had done to search for this woman, she was incessantly trying to irritate him? He watched her moments as the gradual annoyance increased with her matter-of-fact movements.

She'd thrown some medical books into a satchel beside her and-

The satchel! It was _the _satchel; the one that she'd carried with her that day during his life. The one that she'd been scared about him looking inside- he assumed it had held a secret to her possible presence in the past.

"I told you," the silver-haired man sighed, but his eyes never left her. He was waiting to see if she would reveal anything more to him. "I was experimenting with a _jutsu_."

His words seemed to amuse her as she settled the satchel over her shoulder and flicked her vibrant hair to the side as she walked up to him.

"You weren't the only one."

And with a knowing smile and glance towards the satchel she carried, she left him alone in the tent.

He'd come for answers, and he'd only managed to be left with more questions.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! I'll soon be posting a MadaSakuTobi fanfic up here! **

**Please drop a review! ;)**


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